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When I was growing up, we had a house with 2 great fireplaces. They were designed with special vents that returned more heat to the room, rather than losing it all up the flue.

Because my dad worked as a builder, we always had a lot of odd pieces of wood — bits of 2×4s that were left over from a construction site. He used those in the fire, as well as the wood from our land.

Now, I like a nice fire. I like to sit and watch the dancing flames, and see how the embers glow. But my father’s fires were not like that — they were mini-infernos. The fireplace got so hot it was impossible to sit near it, and what you mostly saw was a solid wall of flames.

But to get a fire like that, my dad didn’t have time to watch it — it seemed like all he had time to do was keep feeding the fire. The minute a piece of wood was added — WHOMP — the fire consumed it and it wanted more. Next piece — WHOMP — again — WHOMP.

What does this have to do with blogging, you may be wondering?

Well, that’s what I think of blogging for traffic only. It’s like how my father had to work to keep the fire going full-blast.

It was exciting to see my stat numbers skyrocket when I was linked to by Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion. That lead to a chain reaction of other bloggers linking to me, and my traffic increased.

Suddenly, my perspective started to shift. “They’re watching,” I started thinking. “They’re waiting. What am I going to write about next?” I felt like I had to keep feeding post after post to my blog, without enjoying the process.

Luckily, I realized quickly that my blog is not about getting a lot of traffic. I’ll never be an “A-list” blogger and that’s fine by me.

That’s why I’ve been busy thinking about blogging goals, strategy, and tactics. It’s an ongoing evolution, which is why blogging is so great — it’s much easier to evolve a blog than a static website.

I’ll share my thoughts here, and I hope you’ll add yours. But I probably won’t be posting daily. That’s fine by me and I hope it’s fine by you, too.